


Roof of the Arts Building

by VodkaKevin



Series: Destiel High School AU Oneshots [1]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alcohol, Alternate Universe - College/University, Charlie Ships It, Clubbing, College Student Castiel, College Student Dean, College Students Castiel/Dean Winchester, Dean is a Little Shit, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, Jealous Dean, Jealous Dean Winchester, M/M, Minor Violence, Non-Graphic Violence, References to Drugs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-11
Updated: 2016-01-11
Packaged: 2018-05-13 06:46:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,706
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5698903
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VodkaKevin/pseuds/VodkaKevin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After starting life at college, Dean finds himself unintentionally becoming friends with the quiet, glasses-wearing Philosophy major Castiel Novak. Dean isn't particularly enthralled by him until they watch the sun go down from the roof of the Arts building. Now, as Dean is starting to come to terms with his feelings, he finds Cas is spending more and more time with the Star Wars diehard fan Charlie Bradbury. Can he ever hide his feelings for Cas, or will it tear him - and their friendship - apart?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Roof of the Arts Building

**Author's Note:**

> New oneshot. Dean is an idiot.

   Dean Winchester kicked back on the bed, bringing the joint to his lips. Of course, you weren’t supposed to even smoke _cigarettes_ on campus, let alone weed – but hell, he didn’t care. It wasn’t his style to care in the first place, but the last few days he had been… impulsive. He gazed through cracked eyelids at his boots. Shit. They were muddy from shenanigans he didn’t remember last night, and now his bedsheets were covered in it. Swearing, he kicked the shoes off, sending them spinning into the air and landing noisily on the carpet. More weed. Another toke. He exhaled.

   Being in his second year of college, he knew that there was more productive ways he should be spending his time – reading, highlighting, working on the two assignments or studying for the final, all of which were due in next week, but he couldn’t bring himself to do it. It wasn’t difficult to figure out why, but he refused to let himself believe it. No. Not him. Not Dean Winchester. He was too _punk rock_ for things like this. But that being said, why couldn’t he make his own fucking head believe him? More weed. Another toke. He exhaled.

   There was no way to distract himself though – no amount of chemicals or AC/DC vinyls could do that to a guy. With just a turn of his head, his eyes found themselves wading in the technicolour of a photo taken last summer, printed with cheap ink. The vacation they’d taken to Uncle Bobby’s. He stood in the middle of a group of three, arm slung around his brother, Sam Winchester. Dean let himself smile for a moment: Sam had been working his ass off for years, finally rewarded for his effort on the day last summer that he accepted the place at Stanford University to study Law, merely a few states away from here. Dean would never understand how he did it – how he’d kept on top with all of that schoolwork, alongside being a rock for his big brother Dean to cling to on the days when Dad’s breath smelled of whisky and his hand would roughly draw itself across the older sibling’s skin. Sam had always insisted that the pair of them would get out of there alive. And somehow… somehow they did. Dean had never been able to tell him how much Sam had done for him, because it wasn’t his _style._ Just like the other person in that photo wasn’t his either. But there he was. Dean swallowed and let his eyes stray to drink in, for the hundredth time, the person standing on his right.

   Dean had found Castiel Novak crouched in a bush, sobbing on the first night at college. Stumbling drunkenly back from a bar, there the kid had been, trying to light a cigarette from the wrong end he later admitted he had ‘found on the floor’. He’d never even had a sip of wine before at family gatherings, so attempting to navigate a bar heaving with drunken students had been the same as throwing a child that couldn’t swim into shark-infested waters. And one of those sharks, Castiel told him in an only just-about steadied voice, had stolen his glasses. To this day, Dean remembered the way he had straightened up, brushing the leaves off his leather jacket.

  “Description?” he demanded. Castiel stared at him reproachfully.

  “You don’t have to…”

  “Yes I do. Description?”

  “Six foot, blonde, he’s wearing them, they’re… black, square-rimmed.”

  “Hold tight.”

   Needless to say, the kid was picked up by his parents the next day, babbling incoherently, sporting a black eye and a broken jaw, but not possessing any pair of glasses.

Dean Winchester had never meant to become friends with Castiel – Cas, he later let Dean call him. All through high school, Dean had spent his time interloping between every clique with ease – and sure, while that never meant that he was especially close to anyone, he preferred it that way. Having a rapidly-blinking, dark-haired philosophy major following him around at first felt too weird for him to place anywhere outside the definition of ‘wrong’. However, it was the last day of their first semester that everything changed. They’d sat on the roof of the Arts building, watching all of the other students be picked up by their parents.

  “Aren’t you going home today?” Cas asked Dean. They’d _never_ spoken about family before. Hell, they’d never really got past the arbitrary “How are you?/I’m good how are you?/Good thanks how was your class?/Yeah it was good how was yours?” before. Dean wasn’t sure what it was that made him stiffen – the sudden shift in their friendship, where every exchange had gone from floating on the surface of his identity to suddenly deeper, or the fact that this shift had come about from the fact that Cas had asked about his family. He didn’t realise the silence had become uncomfortable when Cas suddenly said, “I’m sorry, I should probably think before I ask about sensitive subject-”

  “No!” Dean responded, before he could even think. Cas started slightly about his sudden interjection. His head tilted curiously.

  “It’s not that, it’s okay. I don’t mind talking about it. It’s just… I had a hard time at home. Me ‘n my brother. He’s a year younger than me. He kept me sane when… when Dad wasn’t.” Dean’s gaze suddenly became excruciatingly interested in the fibres of his jeans.

  “I get you,” Cas said quietly – and something about his tone… Dean looked at him properly for the first time, tracing his features: the sharp angle of his jaw somewhat concealed by the stubble grazing his chin; the slight crinkles on either side of his pale-blue eyes; the untameable mop of black hair. He searched for some kind of laughter or mockery. Instead, nothing but gentleness, understanding; eyes seemed glassy in the setting sun. He smiled a little at Cas.

  “What about you?”

  “Me? Oh. Yeah my brother is picking me up later. He and the rest of my siblings all go to the same college. It’s about two hours away from here. He’ll pick me up when he – they – can be bothered.” Cas smiled, but the gesture seemed hollow, wintery. 

  “I guess you have a lot of brothers and sisters, then,” Dean responded, his eyes still on Cas’ face.

  “There’s me, my sister Anna – she wanted to go here, but they don’t offer the Art History major she wanted to do – Gabriel, twins Lucifer and Michael, and then Raphael. He’s finishing college today so they’re probably going to be even later because of that. And then when they finally come and pick me up, we won’t be going home for ages because Gabe and Lucifer will use it as a chance to get real drunk.” The resignation in his voice was starting to swell now. Dean placed a hand on his friend’s shoulder, and like the swelling of a storm, that’s when it happened.

Sam had drunkenly burbled about this kind of connection before – relationship goals, he said. The stuff of all-too hyperbolic romance novels, the stuff that spewed out of minds after too much coffee and not enough sleep: Dean had always maintained that idea. But here it was, actually happening. Like his veins were suddenly made of electricity, reacting to the stardust of Castiel’s skin. And it _burned._

  “Dean? What’s the matter?”

  “Uh…” He couldn’t look at Castiel, not now. If he did, he knew his brain would admit what he was too afraid to tell. Instead, his eyes fell on the parking lot. An orange pick up lorry, with a number of slightly-older kids was rolling in.

  “Hey Castiel!” The boy – well, more of a _man,_ thanks to the scruff of strawberry blonde gathered round his jaw _-_ in the front seat suddenly roared as his eyes fell on the roof, “Come on down brother!” As if to demonstrate Cas’ impending doom, he shook a half-full bottle of beer in their general direction, resulting in the yeasty liquid frothing up and spilling all over his hand. He swore, glaring at his hand as if stung by a bee. A few moments of silence, and then he began sucking on his fingers like some kind of animal.

  “Well, there’s my ride,” said Cas, with the same enthusiasm as a prisoner on death row. He stood up and dusted off his jeans. “Guess I’ll see you after winter break.” Just as he walked away, however, a jet of words suddenly flew from Dean’s mouth.

  “Wait, give me your number. I’ll text you and keep you company tonight when your brothers are being assholes.”

And instead of just walking away like his Dad probably would have done, of course Dean Winchester had to follow his stupid, crooked heart. Now here he was, laying on his bed, stuck in the truth that he had the biggest crush on a boy – a boy who now was out with another girl: a ginger, lanky girl who always wore Star Wars t-shirts and probably had a lot more in common with her fellow nerd than the classic-rock loving Dean Winchester ever could. He tried to swallow down the lump in his throat. Didn’t work. More weed. Another toke. Exhale.

Laying on his bed wasn’t enough for him. It seemed like he only blinked, and suddenly he found himself on that same roof, where they’d sat a year ago. They’d done so much since then together. The conversation had deepened more. They’d dived into each other’s consciousness, floating lazily past various memories, talking long into the night. Dean had almost choked on a swig of whiskey one time when Cas told him about when Lucifer took him to a Sixx:AM concert, and the pair of them ended up in stitches as Cas elaborated on the traumatic moment when Luci had volunteered his brother to go up on stage, after claiming Cas could most definitely play lead guitar on their closing song. Needless to say, the set was ruined, and to this day Cas ducked his head whenever he saw someone wearing a Sixx:AM tshirt in case they recognised him from either the concert, or the viral videos taken of him straddling a guitar about the same size as him. Dean’s eyes had even burned when he told Cas about the death of his mother when he was just four years old. They’d been lying there with a few beers, counting the stars like lovers from an old eighties movie, that same electrical feeling skittering over Dean’s skin as Cas placed his hand on Dean’s arm. And now, to possibly lose all this… He felt his features twist a little as he spied them. Walking arm in arm just across the plaza, she with her head on his neck. Charlie Bradbury. With _his…_ friend. Dean sighed and tried to swallow yet another lump in his throat. He had to maintain composure here. Cas was only his friend. He couldn’t dictate who he hung out with. But at the same time… He felt his blood plunge in temperature as a familiar voice called out his name.

  “Hey Dean!! Dean!! How are you?” Cas cheerfully said, breaking from Charlie’s grip taking a few strides to be able to look up at the older Winchester better. From here, he could see the gentle blue shade to Cas’ eyes, the initial warmth of his gaze doused by the malice he found in Dean’s. He turned and, dropping his half-finished joint, stood up, brushing off his jeans, staring straight out at the horizon.

  “Dean, wait!” But it would never be good enough; suddenly he was unable to keep the fury from within him now, directed solely at the boy standing below him, some kind of sick, convoluted Romeo and Juliet, with all of the tragedy rearing its ugly head.

  “Just fuck off Cas!” The words flew from his tongue, tiny, searing bullets that seemed to physically hurt his friend as he flinched away from Dean. “Just fuck off! Go hang out with your fucking girlfriend, you four-eyes piece of shit.”

  “Dean…” But Dean wouldn’t listen anymore. He wouldn’t have this. He should have cut Cas off the _moment_ this started.

_‘Once your heart sets on something, you’ll be vulnerable forever. Keep yourself a machine.’_

His Dad’s words sent a sudden searing pain tearing through Dean’s knuckles. He blinked and realised he was back in his room, his fist leaving a jagged mark in the wall. The pain was dizzying. It felt good. Almost nicotine-rush good.

The bruise blossomed overnight, a stormcloud swelling beneath his skin by morning. Dean flexed his fingers carefully. His hand wasn’t broken. Far from it. He smirked. Should have punched harder. Light up a joint. More weed. Another toke. Exhale.

Only three tokes in when his haze of pain and drugs was shattered. A knock at his door. He groaned.

  “Dean.” That voice. Dean winced – and not from the tinge in his hand: rather a pain that started deep in his chest, spreading through his body, lingering at all of the edges as if afraid to let him go.

  “The fuck do you want, Cas,” he mumbled as he opened the door. The shadows under the Novak’s eyes were nothing compared to the injury Dean had inflicted upon himself. And speaking of bruises… Cas’ gaze strayed from Dean’s weary green orbs, travelled down his body, still wearing the clothes he’d had on yesterday, lingering at his hand.

  “Shit, your hand.” The older Novak tried to reach for the bruised fingers but Dean pulled them away. 

  “Cas, what do you want?” he hissed. Cas’ eyes crinkled at the corners for a moment, boring back into Dean’s. He couldn’t take it.

  “Dean, no! I need to talk to you!” The door wouldn’t close, Cas had wedged his shoulder between it and the doorframe. Keeping him from shutting the youngest Novak out forever. Keeping him from moving on.

  “For fuck’s sake, Cas, don’t you have _anything_ better to do than this?” Dean demanded, with more force than he’d intended, his eyes sparking with fury. He expected Cas to flinch away like before, but he wouldn’t keep his eyes from Dean’s.

  “Look Dean, Charlie isn’t my girlfriend. She’s _gay._ ”

  “I don’t…” It was that moment that Dean registered what Cas had said. He felt his previously-thrumming heart suddenly silence itself. The shards of ice in his blood stopped scratching against the inside of his limbs. He stared at Cas in complete confusion. Having quelled his friend, Cas lowered his head, still keeping his eyes trained on Dean. The determination in the gesture was almost dizzying.

  “We were doing an assignment together. She has Biology class with me. We were doing stuff about beetles. She has a girlfriend  - her name’s Jo Harvelle. Pretty sure you have Sports with her.”

   Dean’s mouth was now hanging open. With a thump, he was aware of the blood thrumming in his ears again.

  “So I’m not dating _anybody._ There _is_ somebody that I would quite like to date, but he can be such a fucking idiot sometimes, I wonder if it’s even worth bothering, Dean.” A trace of sharpness could now be found within Cas’ voice. Dean stared at his friend in sudden bemusement.

  “You mean…”

  “Yes, Dean. So when you’re done being defensive, rude and destructive I was wondering if you-“

   Cas didn’t get any further, because in that moment Dean had scooped him up from where he was wedged between the door and the doorway and the electricity was stronger than ever, pulsing through every bone in his body, and even though his hand groaned, nothing seemed to matter anymore.

The day before winter break, Cas and Dean spent it on the roof of the Arts building again, their legs tangled together, Dean’s arms wrapped around Cas like earthern gates, as they watched the sun set. When the orange pickup truck _finally_ rolled into the parking lot, Dean would accept a bottle from Lucifer, beer-soaked as per usual, and shake the sandy-haired Gabriel’s hand, before pulling Cas back onto his lap and planting a kiss on the lips he’d dreamed about for exactly a year.


End file.
